Urban Futures Salford Manchester. Research in the City

Urban Futures Salford Manchester is a research portal created by the Greater Manchester Local Interaction Platform (GM LIP) for Mistra Urban Futures. The GMLIP provides a space for researchers and practitioners to work together on common projects such as governing sustainability, the value of community hubs and even Platform itself. We are interested in understanding what is happening to the sustainable cities agenda in 21st century Greater Manchester and how the knowledge and skills of different stakeholders can contribute to a more sustainable transition.

This portal has been developed to provide blogs and updates on our work as well as easy access to the research findings and reports as they become available. Over time, we hope to include more insights from other researchers working on issues relevant to the communities, neighbourhoods, places and cities that make up Greater Manchester.

Beth Perry and Alex Wharton argue that we need to turn up the volume on the articulation of different values for the relationship between economic, social and environmental concerns in the city-region.

We need the integration of existing knowledge as much as new knowledge and need to reclaim the right to the city for those that work and live within it. Beth Perry introduces a report from the Greater Manchester Local Interaction Platform based on a series of collaborative, cross-sectoral activities in 2012.

Decarbonising cities has become an increasingly important policy and research challenge. Debates usually focus on the role of cities as producers and reducers of CO2; city-level policy responses to decarbonisation; and the strengths and weaknesses of these responses. Mike Hodson and Alex Wharton summarise these issues and the role of policy, practice and research in enhancing city responses in Greater Manchester; and set out future work to enhance responses.

What urban capacities exist to develop sustainable urban futures, formally and informally? What do different policies for sustainable urban development look like in different countries? How do different stakeholders and communities influence policy formulation? What can we learn from sharing experiences between cities in different parts of the globe?

Greater Manchester is not an island. A number of academic and policy studies have highlighted how cities responses to the challenges of sustainability are shaped by a broader set of national-local and city-city relationships. Since the new Coalition government in the UK in 2010, relationships between national government and cities have been reshaped. What are the consequences of these changes? How important are cities’ broader spatial networked relationships for how they address sustainable urban development (SUD)? What value is there in learning between and across different urban responses to sustainability in 21st Century Britain?